The other night while walking around our favorite pond in southern Utah, we encountered a beetle. We’ve seen new creatures almost every time we visit lately—ducks, coots, Canadian geese, goslings, lizards, caterpillars, bats, sparrows… But last night the new encounter was a bit more nerve-racking.
We’d made it more than halfway around the pond before I felt something gigantic and wing’ed fly into me. I promptly swatted at it with my water bottle and thought that had taken care of the problem. Then I looked down and glimpsed something large and yellow on the front of my shoulder. I had the fleeting thought that it was a giant bee/bumblebee and *may* have lost it after that. (I’ve had a wasp take a determined pit stop on my skirt before so this was not an unrealistic assumption.)
Fight or flight mode kicked in and instead of choosing one or the other, I combined the two, spinning in circles to get away, while flicking at the bug with my water bottle. It latched onto my shirt for dear life with spiny, little legs and would. Not. Budge.
Of course, through it all, I prevailed upon Steven to “be a man” and GET it OFF! But neither of us wanted to touch the thing with our fingers in case it latched on there and ate us.
Somewhere between “lost it” and “fight or flight mode,” we realized it was a beetle and even took a moment for a photoshoot because, duh…life threatening situations and pictures just go together. *shrug*
Eventually, Steven pried it off with a rock—like a man—and we skedaddled.
Just another day.